Two years ago, Casio and professional surfer Kanoa Igarashi gave us the GLX-5600KB-1JR, a black-and-gold G-Shock that watched the tides, tracked the moon, and otherwise minded its own business. Their fourth collaboration, the GBX-H5600KI-5JR, is a whole lot nosier. It now wants to know your heart rate, sleep quality, blood oxygen level, and whether you have exercised lately.
The new model graduates from the comparatively simple GLX-5600 platform to the fitness-focused G-LIDE GBX-H5600. It retains the essential surfing tools, including tide and moon graphs, but adds sunrise and sunset times, an optical heart-rate sensor, step tracking, distance and pace measurements, workout logs, breathing exercises, and Polar-powered training and sleep analysis.
Bluetooth connectivity lets the Casio Watches app automatically correct the time, review health and activity data, and configure tide information from approximately 3,300 locations worldwide. Smartphone GPS can also improve distance measurements. In short, the previous watch helped you find the waves; the new one would also like to know what you did after finding them.
The high-contrast MIP LCD is easier to read in direct sunlight and underwater, while USB charging handles its smarter functions. Solar-assisted charging keeps basic timekeeping alive when the battery runs low. Expect up to 35 hours with heart-rate activity tracking, around one month in watch mode, or approximately 11 months with power saving enabled and no solar input.
Visually, the mixed brown bio-based resin bezel and band take inspiration from the cliffs and rocky shores around Ericeira, Portugal, one of Igarashi’s training bases. Lavender accents represent his beloved ocean “magic hour,” and the molding process gives every watch a slightly different pattern. His handwritten signature appears on the face and case back, while his competition number, 50, occupies the band. Subtle it is not, but neither is surfing down a moving wall of water.
The shock-resistant watch measures 51.1 × 44.5 × 17.3 mm, weighs 47 g, and offers 200 m (660 ft) water resistance. Its carbon-fiber-reinforced resin case back also makes it around 18 g lighter than Casio’s earlier heart-rate-equipped DW-H5600.
The Casio G-Shock × Kanoa Igarashi GBX-H5600KI-5JR commands 50,600 yen [JP] in Japan and US$370 in the U.S. That is significantly more than the 22,000-yen GLX-5600KB-1JR, but to be fair, the old model never judged your cardio load while you waited for a wave.
Images: Casio.